Student Aspires To Prosperous Position In ‘New Century’

The first Spokane high school student to earn a varsity letter in business is already doing his bit to help build a better tomorrow.

Lewis & Clark senior Dan Campbell stepped into the public spotlight last week at a news conference called to announce plans for a broad-based effort to recharge the regional economy. The teen leader said he aspires to a business administration degree in 2001, after which he will set out to find “a job in a community able to enrich me not just socially but make the last four years financially worthwhile.

“I hope then I will be able to achieve all that I am working for now, but what I won’t have to look for and pursue,” he said, “is a community in which to achieve it - because in the next century, that community will be Spokane, Washington.”

Added the LC honors student, who not only was the first to earn a letter in business but helped write the guidelines that define how to qualify for one, “My generation is saying, we want a better tomorrow.”

That also is what adult organizers of the “New Century Plan” are saying. It is a regionwide effort to expand employment opportunities so the next generation won’t have to leave home to find viable work.

At the news briefing last Wednesday, others also addressed the need to transcend strictly bottom-line business objectives and expand economic opportunities for everyone throughout the community.

The effort by a cross section of community leaders from Spokane, the Spokane Valley and North Idaho grew out of a re-examination of Momentum, the business-sector economic enhancement organization, now in the final year of its second five-year plan. In coming months, organizers will decide whether Momentum continues in some form, or passes into history.

The new initiatives are being undertaken by a coalition of business institutions - a so-called “Strategic Alliance” - composed of the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce, Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce, Spokane Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, and Spokane Area Economic Development Council.

In the past, each has pursued separate and sometimes overlapping strategies. Under the alliance, the central mission of each will continue. But a collaborative effort will be undertaken in areas of common interest - lobbying, international trade, business retention and expansion, and research.

Economic positions reshuffled

As part of the restructuring for a collaborative effort, Meri Berberet has left the Spokane Area Economic Development Council as director of research, a high-profile post.

Berberet headed up the council’s research effort for many years. She says she is not at liberty to discuss her career plans at this time.

Vicki Redlin, also a highly visible executive of a member institution, is another who won’t be joining the alliance.

Redlin resigned as director of community affairs for the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce to take a position with David Evans & Associates, development specialists employing a staff of about 20 in Spokane.

Redlin and informed sources both inside and outside of the chamber say the move was her call.

Ditto Susan Meyer, former chief of staff of Momentum. Meyer has joined Pacific Gas Transmission Co. in Spokane as director of community relations for Washington and Idaho.

Washington attracts attention

Washington state is one of the nation’s corporate relocation “Hot, Hot, Hot Spots,” according to a headline in Plants Sites & Parks magazine.

The economic development trade journal reports its readers in companies on the move rate Washington among the top 10 states as a preferred relocation destination. For footloose California concerns, operating costs, living costs, and crime rates here glitter like a “vein of gold.”

“For example,” says the magazine, “GSI Outdoors, a wholesale distribution company specializing in camping, cookware amd RV accessories, relocated from San Diego to Spokane. For the same money, the company had the choice of financing a 55,000-square-foot facility in Spokane or leasing a 15,000-square-foot building in San Diego.

“GSI was also looking for a smaller-town atmosphere with less crime.”

, DataTimes MEMO: Starting today, Associate Editor Frank Bartel will write about people and businesses with noteworthy accomplishments each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review